Combined approach of a coupled fire model with atmospheric releases: The case of the 2003 glacier wildfires

A combined GIS and remote sensing approach is applied to map and model the Glacier National Park wildfires of the summer 2003. Numerical simulations were performed using the Clarke Fire Automaton Model, and the fire extents were associated with the atmospheric plumes, observed using remote sensing data from the MODerate resolution Imaging Spectro-radiometer and Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer. The wildfire simulation results show a correlation between the predicted and the actual fires. Remote sensing data are used to quantify the optical dimming of the atmosphere caused by the fires. The observed atmospheric dimming is correlated both spatially and temporally, with the fire simulations. Such knowledge is crucial to build a coupled land-atmosphere fire model.